Born and raised in Los Angeles, Tom Ito, a third-generation Japanese-American, was destined to be in the hospitality industry. He worked at his grandparents’ restaurant when he was young, and he was also inspired by his parents—his father was a bartender-turned-restaurant GM and his mother worked as a hostess. He joined Gensler nearly 40 years ago, launching the firm’s hospitality practice in the late 1990s with the renovation of the Beverly Hills Hotel. He has since expanded the practice to an international scale, with projects including Nekajui, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve Resort & Residences in Guanacaste, Costa Rica; the Six Senses Grand Bahama; and the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Athens in Greece. Now, as the firmwide leader of the hospitality practice and principal in Gensler’s Los Angeles office, Ito is also integral to the firm’s climate change initiative, which aims to make all Gensler projects carbon neutral by 2030.

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